Magnum: vocals, screams, depressions and sore throat
Egil Pinås: guitar, background and lead vocals, Spain lover
Nils Olsen: guitar, background vocals, occasional screams, Spain lover
Mads Husvik: drums and cymbals, playboy
Ulf Larsen: bass guitar, background vocals, Good Guy
Arne Thelin: tour manager, rock star, record label owner, Good Guy
Michael "Mikke/Mickey" Heltorp: driver, road manager
Rocio Garcia: Spanish Bitch and cock-teaser
01 Mar: Kongens Brygge, Halden, Norway (RELEASE PARTY)
06 Mar: So What, Oslo, Norway (CANCELLED)
08 Mar: Lacoste MC, Sarpsborg, Norway
12 Mar: Yellow, Toulouse, France
14 Mar: Tapioca, Vitoria, Spain
15 Mar: Komplot, San Sebastian, Spain
16 Mar: Templo Del Gato, Madrid, Spain
17 Mar: Gaztetxe, Alsasua, Spain
18 Mar: Planta Baixa, Vigo, Spain
19 Mar: Platon, Leon, Spain
22 Mar: Magic, Barcelona, Spain
23 Mar: Cotton Club, Lleida, Spain
24 Mar: Ricoamor, Castellon, Spain
26 Mar: 22 Rue de la Loi, Limoges, France
27 Mar: Jimmy, Bordeaux, France (CANCELLED)
27 Mar: Yucatan, Angouleme, France
28 Mar: Tontons Flingeurs, Rennes, France
29 Mar: Fahrenheit, Issy Les Molineux
- Paris, France
30 Mar: Penicle Tontons Flingeurs, Arras,
France
31 Mar: The Pit's, Kortrijk, Belgium
03 Apr: St. Croix, Fredrikstad, Norway
In January 1996, the Basement Brats were in the studio recording our last album, "The Bratbeat". We spent weeks in the studio doing a job that we would previously have done in approximately ten hours. It wasn't really as fun as before either, it seemed more like hard work...
At any rate, the album was eventually finished, and we set out on our last "mission" ever: The Bratbeat Tour. We started with a release party in our hometown of Halden on the first of March, supported by another Halden band, the Poppets. It was quite enjoyable - a lot of people there. The gig we were supposed to be doing in Oslo next was cancelled. That was not so good. Then we did a gig at an MC club in Skjeberg, Sarpsborg supported by yet another Halden band, the Marsmen. I guess about twenty people showed up.
Finally we were ready for our three weeks long trip down to the big continent...
It is now time to tell the full story.The story of the Basement Brats is a finite one, after all; it's got a beginning (October 1990) and an end (April 1996). This tour diary is the last chapter.
The story below has been quickly translated and loosely edited from two lengthy letters I wrote to my girlfriend during and after the tour. The experience of going through all this material again was not a pleasant one. It really brought back the feelings of what it was like, and that is something that I really don't like to be reminded of. Everything in italics are comments and additions written in January 1997.
The pictures are taken mostly from the two films I have of the tour (I forgot a third one backstage in Paris, but as it contained almost only pictures from Hell Week, I'm not so sad about that).
Enjoy. I sure didn't.
Magnum,
Stockholm, Sweden, January 1997/March 1998
We are now driving fast on a wide road some place in the world's biggest Sweden (Germany), and you have to excuse me if my handwriting is jumping a bit at times, because the road is not completely flat...
The time is 3.40 p.m., and we have been driving since we got to Kiel at around nine o'clock this morning. I think we have now passed Düsseldorf, but I'm not quite sure. Anyway, the last time I heard a number, there were approximately 1300 kilometres left before we reach the first gig. That was probably a couple a hours ago, so it's of course shorter now - perhaps 1150 or something like that...? Fucking far at any rate, but it's possible that we may pop into another place we're gonna play in France later tonight, have a look at it and fix some sleeping there.
Yesterday was quite alright. We got to Gothenburg, on board the ferry, threw some stash in the cabins and established ourselves in the bar with some lagers, drinks and the dance band Special Edition (to be pronounced with a Swedish accent). I didn't get very drunk myself, but Mads got a bit tipsy. He had to drink himself to courage to dare sleep together with a complete stranger. Myself, I was in a cabin with Nils, Ulf and Arne and slept good and well until a Swede in the loudspeaker woke us up at around seven.
Then it was time to get some food, and after that we have been driving, driving, driving and driving, and we'll probably go on like that for a day or so - with hopefully a stop tonight.
Right now I was planning to get some reading done, and then maybe a nap for fifteen minutes or so later - if at all possible. I mean, there's always something happening every time I'm about to fall asleep.
Yippee! We're in Belgium! The time is 3.59!
We're now finally in Toulouse ("Born Toulouse"... :-) The time is now two o'clock, and I guess we've been here for about an hour and a half or so), and the climate is quite pleasant here too. It was bloody snowing in Germany!
I guess we got to France about 4.45 yesterday (or was it 5.45? Perhaps rather that), and we had to "bribe" some customs officers/passport controllers with three CD's. I guess that's probably called being "nice" and not giving them any impression that they have any reason to take the car apart. You don't fuck with Frenchmen with automatic guns...
A short while later we stopped to eat a bit and stuff like that (well, not me, they only had meat shit), and then we went on driving - and driving and driving and driving and driving.... We stood still for about three hours last night, but apart from that we've just been driving, except for some pissing, fueling and eating breaks.
But now, as I said, we are finally at the "Yellow" in Toulouse, have gotten a load of food, wine, beer, juice, coke, water and booze (!) and will now relax a bit until the sound check and radio interview and stuff. We have a supporting band today as well, in which the bloke who arranges the gig here plays, and they're covering "Stay Away from my Girl". I think I have mentioned before that they supported the Kwyet Kings at one time. Anyway, they want me to sing the song with them, and of course I will!
Now I'm gonna try and get some sleep - there haven't been a lot of hours of sleep since the ferry, and we have been driving approximately the equivalent of Lindesnes-North Cape a time and half...
It's been a while since last I wrote, but so much has been happening that I haven't had a chance to write a lot. Now I'm lying in a hotel room in San Sebastian (Donostia in Basque, by the way), and I thought it was about time I got this a bit updated before we're going to the Komplot club to play afterwards.
Our support band in Toulouse, the Shoo Chain Brothers, were quite cool - nine guys on the stage: two half drummers (one snare and a floor tom each plus a cymbal to share), three guitarists, one bassist, one vocalist and two background vocal babes. They played a lot of cool rock, including "Action" by the Devil Dogs (they had supported the Devil Dogs once - after having played together for two months - where they also played "Action" - at least the 45 seconds of it they knew at the time) and of course "Stay Away from my Girl", then... As an encore they did "Stay Away..." again with me on vocals. :-)
Our own show wasn't so bad either. It didn't start that great, but elevated itself rather nicely towards the end, and we had to go on stage three more times. And when we played "Stay Away...", I naturally waved to the vocalist of the Shoo Chain Brothers to get him up on the stage to join me.
Arne was at the back of the room playing businessman, and we actually sold a bit of stuff too - except T-shirts, of which we only sold one. I guess we have to reduce the price a bit before our next job in France.
Arne also sold quite a few of the new Kwyet Kings single - and the Lust-O-Rama EP "Hello Little Schoolboy" with the cover where Alex is sucking cock (the EP contained previously unreleased Lust-O-Rama tracks. Alex Rosén was the singer the Highrollers (the remaining Lust-O's. At least they had the sense to change to name of the band...) recruited after Arne left). Arne phoned home today and was told that there had been a big report on it in VG (Norway's largest tabloid paper) and stuff, so you may have seen it. Sonet/PolyGram were gonna press charges and all that nice stuff. Arne couldn't be more pleased.
P3 (Norwegian national radio channel) had apparently done a little thing around Christmas about Arne saying he was gonna beat up Alex. When he sent out bunches of promo copies of the EP before we left, he also wrote to P3: "I've never said I was gonna beat up Alex, I'm a very nonviolent person. On the other hand, I've said that he was gonna get a big one straight in the face, and one can definitely say he has." :-)
Back to Toulouse: after the gig we were placed in the homes of various people. Mads and I slept at the place of a guy called Antoine and his sister, who had a record collection with almost exactly the same music as Mads has, only more.
The following day we ate some long French bread and were brought for a little sightseeing trip into the town before we went to a radio station at three o'clock and did a two and a half hour show with and about Arne Thelin and the Basement Brats (well, really in the opposite order). We will of course get a copy of it (we never did. At least I never did).
The show was made by a couple of blokes from the Shoo Chain Brothers (the vocalist - who by the way arranged the gig as well - and the one half drummer) plus another guy who, by the way, spoke very good English.
Then it was time to drive a few hours again and cross another border (we didn't have to give away any records this time), and the rest I think I will have to try and tell about on the way to Madrid tomorrow, because we're going over to play in a minute.
Now it's really about time I try to get this thing a bit up to date. We're approximately in the middle of the tour now, and I've only written about the first gig yet. So I'll try to write as much as possible on the way to Leon now.
I got as far as getting into Spain on Wednesday night. We were going to play in Vitoria the day after, so we found a hotel approximately halfway between San Sebastian and Vitoria so we didn't have to sleep in the car again. I tried my VISA card for the first time when we paid the bill. None of us had much pessetasses (as we call it) yet.
When we got to Vitoria nothing was really ready for us, and we had to wait several hours for the guy who arranged it (and obviously our other gigs in the Basque country as well, 'cause he's kept following us...), a smirking hash addict named Willy (don't smoke and drive, folks!). But fortunately there was a guy who worked as a DJ there who spoke good English (and fucking few people here do) who arranged and fixed things for us on his own initiative. Fucking good man!
Finally there was a gig, then. There were a lot more people than in Toulouse (there were about 30 there, here there were about 100), but they seemed to be expecting a few more. Anyway, we had rearranged the set a bit since Toulouse to get a bit more "attractive" mix of the songs, but we still had to work quite a bit to get the people with us. But when we played "Me Vuelvo Loco" as the first encore, things really took off.
Then we had to drive for a while - to Alsasua - to sleep. The day after we were gonna meet Willy at the hotel at twelve o'clock, but he naturally didn't turn up before four... By the way, he speaks less English than I speak Chinese!
After he got there, however, he did his job like he was supposed to. He took us to San Sebastian and the club there, where we did the sound check, and then to the hotel, where we got to relax a bit before the concert. That's where I wrote last time.
Then we went and picked up Rocio (who had booked the Spanish shows and came along with us for a lot of the trip to "help us out," as it were...) at the railway station (she was very shameful, she said, by the bad job this Willy fellow had done), and then we played for a small but enthusiastic audience.
My voice started fucking with me that night, though - and Willy hadn't brought any money for neither this night nor the previous one, so Rocio had to go home with him to get the dough. If she hadn't been there, we wouldn't have gotten fucking paid. Nils and Ulf came with her too. The others of us got tired of waiting for them, so we went and lapsed at the hotel (in two taxis - "follow that taxi").
Now I'm gonna try and lapse a bit in this back seat, 'cause I'm quite tired. Rocio has stolen my pillow - she's lying over Egil and Mikke ("Mickey! Where's Pluto?"), but I guess I'll use an NSB (Norwegian national railway company) pillow...
Well, here are Ulf and I sitting up in Jimmie's place watching "American Strip Tease - Behind the Lights" (documentary - no hardcore), smoking and drinking water. It's not fucking possible to get any beer at this time of day - unless you want to go out to drink, then. Then it's the least problem in the world!
Okay... I'm fucking fed up right now, but I guess I'll still have to try and get this up to date soon, so that I can hopefully send this off tomorrow. I was planning to get up to date yesterday, but I couldn't bear to.
Okay, in the story we have now gotten to Saturday, on the way to Madrid. We had a little sightseeing in San Sebastian first - took a few pictures at Spain's apparently most famous beach and stuff. At that time things were still fine...
Then there were a few hours' driving to Madrid, but that wasn't so bad. I slept part of the way until I woke up around Sierra Nevada and things outside the window started getting a bit more interesting to watch.
A quick sound check and then me, Ulf and Egil put our stash in the hotel room. We were gonna stay there while the rest were gonna sleep at Rocio's (quite a bit outside town). Then, while the others ate some meat stuff (everything I ate that day was one croissant), I tried removing the worst songs from the set. It was after all a quite important gig.
I was really a bit tired of the tour already on the way to Madrid, but it was alright again when we started playing. The singing went quite well (my voice broke a few times, though...), the audience were with us - and of course things always take off when we do "Me Vuelvo Loco" (that bloody Spanish!).
Afterwards there was a lot of signing and stuff while Arne stood and sold records - and I did an interview with a Spanish fanzine. With a really fucked up voice, of course (that was another thing I was supposed to be sent a copy of, but I've never received it). We discussed a bit whether we ought to cancel the gig the day after, but we reached the conclusion that we were gonna try.
Then there was a party, until long into the night. That was actually quite fun. I was drunk as a skunk and high as a house (yeah, might as well admit it!) and actually had a quite good time. Then I tried flirting with some babes for fun, which only confirmed once more that I don't stand a chance picking up girls...
And then it was up to Basque country hell again, then (after I shopped quite a bit of Vitamin C in fruit shape and got some throat pastilles by Jimmie) - to Alsasua. Same hotel as between the Vitoria and San Sebastian jobs and a real nationalist punk cave (probably the headquarters of ETA or something. They were probably up on the storey above making bombs). No PA, just a song rig, and almost no voice... And Willy again, then... But playing still went quite well, I put a plug in one ear and sang as calmly and as relaxed as I could. At least my voice didn't get any worse.
I couldn't handle any party that night, and the others quit early as well. And after a night's sleep we were at least finally finished with the Basque country. Thank God!
After Rocio came with us, we have actually gotten up far too late (that really started seriously this time, I guess). We have only had time for a lightning quick sound check, then a little lightning eating and then straight on stage. We never get to relax. Rocio have more or less taken over the control, and I guess Arne has felt a bit out of it. But now we have at least told her that we can't go on getting up this late.
The trip to Vigo took 8-9 hours. The first hours were fucking slow, but after a while I, Nils, Mads, Ulf and Arne started partying in the back of the car, and then things sped up a bit.
But then there was the stress when we finally got there, and once again there was only a song rig, and my voice was still bad. But with a plug in one ear, I at least hear well, and I've gone on singing calmly.
The gig went alright. Nice audience. A guy told us afterwards that Jeff Dahl was gonna play there soon, and that he had to do a fucking good job to beat us.
Afterwards we were invited to a nachspiel. We thought that might be nice, there hadn't been any real "nachspiel-nachspiel" at the tour yet. But we just ended up at a bar that was open "especially for us." That was nice, of course, and the music was good and all, but I should really have gone with Mikke directly to the hotel, 'cause I was about to fall asleep on the bar counter.
The next day we got up far too late again, and then came the worst shitty job so far. Platon in Leon has to be crummiest place in the whole of Spain. Everything's about to fall apart - especially the song rig, with blown speakers, no monitoring, plus the fact that the "stage" was coming apart all the time so I fell down between these bloody wooden plates.
The concert was acceptable enough, though, and the audience was good. It was afterwards that things really got ugly. Obviously, three guys own the place, and they're not at all friendly with each other. We, of course, had to pay for that. The guy who was dealing with us suddenly disappeared, and when we finally came back, he was just hanging in the bar, refusing to show us to the "hotel" (basically more or less a cold ruin), which he also owned. We were tired and exhausted and got fucking pissed - especially Arne, who had to deal with the asshole because Rocio had gone home to Madrid to go to work the day afterwards.
When we finally got to this "hotel", it too was falling apart and dirty and cold and basically hell. I slept with my clothes on. After that my mood hasn't exactly been the best...
Oh yes, I forgot to mention that I got fucking lost in Leon, and that I went looking for this bloody Platon club for about an hour. That didn't help a lot either...
We got out of that "hotel" as quickly as we could and started on the long road back to Madrid again - that is, the suburb where Rocio lives. Two of us were gonna sleep here at Jimmie's place and the rest with her. The former turned out to be me and Ulf, since we were the only ones who couldn't be bothered to go to some bloody "power pop party". Besides, I was/am fed up with the whole Rocio thing, and besides, she has a dog, and as tired as I am, I had an allergic reaction immediately.
We took a taxi to town, and got to the right door at once (after I had had to speak German with the taxi driver), but there were so many buttons to press that we didn't know which one to choose. So we had to wait for half an hour for some babe to finish in the phone booth so we could call Rocio and ask her to call Jimmie and ask him to open the door for us.
Jimmie went to rehearsal and stuff, so Ulf and I went with his roommate to a pub and had a few brewskies (his English is not as good as Jimmie's - who's no king either - but at least he knew more than most people in this shitty country, so we were able to chat a bit), and then we went to bed and slept - for a long time.
Arne took the underground into Madrid yesterday, by the way, and checked in at a hotel. He's going home tomorrow, the lucky son of a bitch... Today we've met him and gotten some tips for France and stuff - and shopped a few records. I bought "Anthology 2", a bootleg edition of the White Album with a lot of alternative takes and stuff, a bootleg with one of the last Nirvana concerts and "La Mano Cornuda" (fucking Spanish title) with the Supersuckers, so now I have to buy new batteries for my CD player.
Ulf and I are taking it easy tonight as well (the others are probably drunk somewhere) and tomorrow we're going to work again. Between the last Spain gig and the first (new) France gig we have a day off, and since hotels are cheaper in Spain than in France, we will probably be here for another four days... Fucking hell...
Now I've washed my hair and the rest of my body, shaved, brushed my teeth, changed underwear and washed a couple of underpants, and I still have more than an hour and a half before we're supposed to be back at the club, so now I'm gonna try and get a bit updated here again.
Let's try and finish the story of this hell country we've been in... Just a moment, I'm just gonna fetch my walkman and some Beatles...
When Ulf and I slept at this Jimmie fellow's place, we switched between using a mattress with "sheets" and stuff and a sleeping bag on the floor. The second night it was my turn to use the sleeping bad. The floor was hard as hell! I had to make a kind of mattress out of sofa pillows (I've done that before), but I still didn't sleep very well. So when I finally woke up properly around ten, I was restless as hell. I went down to MacDonald's to eat "breakfast," and arranged with Ulf to meet me there later. When he came, he told me that Arne had called Jimmie in the meantime to tell that he had been attacked and robbed by six guys on the way home to the hotel the night before. I heard yesterday that he had put his money in his pocket instead of his wallet and thereby made them believe that he was broke, and he had gotten his passport and his plane ticket back... But they had obviously torn his clothes up, and, anyway, it's not very pleasant for such a thing to happen on the way to hotel the night before he was going home. Bloody Spaniacs!
Then we went to meet Egil's "puta" (you'll have to look up in a dictionary what "puta" means (it's Spaniac language)) when she finished work (she's a teacher at a school five minutes from Jimmie's place) and went with her home, where we met the others and went on to Barcelona.
I haven't mentioned this thing with her and Egil, but, anyway, it had gotten even worse in the meantime, and if I wasn't sour and depressed and tired of Spain before, I definitely was then. I was actually shocked at how unprofessional it was possible to act - when a kind of assistant tour manager, which she was, first occupies the job of the tour manager (I think I've forgotten to mention it, by the way, but Arne was a great man the whole time he was with us) and then start a relationship with one of the band members while she's on the road with them! Suddenly we were no longer a band, we were four plus a couple making out in the corners! Well, we were really three, plus that couple, plus me, as I reacted more to it than the others did and therefore was lagging a bit behind.
I seriously started considering quitting the band at this time. I don't really think it's worth everything I have to sacrifice anymore. I mean, I'm not getting anything back for it! For quite a long time already, I've felt as a sort of hired (without getting paid) vocalist. What I feel I have to contribute is sort of not important. Every time I have another opinion about something than the others (well... than Nils, usually), it's just "Get real!" or "You might as well just forget that!" Besides, I would really like to play some rougher music as well. So would Ulf, and I chatted a bit with him one night about starting a new band. He was not uninterested, but he would like to continue in the Brats as well, and of course he may...
Actually they talked that night about kicking me out because I was so "negative", so I might as well just quit myself. I haven't really any doubt that with the right people I will be able to record and release a few records after I'm "known" from the Brats. But I will definitely never again tour in Spain, whether I continue in the Brats or not...
Well, at least I drank a bottle of wine (it wasn't even a particularly good wine, but at least it was strong) on the way to Barcelona while I sat listening to my Beatles records, and went on drinking beer (wine and beer is a good combination, right?), so I was really quite drunk when we played... I don't think the job I did was much worse because of that. The gig went quite alright, despite some bad sound (as usual), and it was a good crowd and all.
But then I tasted some pop cigarettes ("herbal jazz cigarettes," as Paul McCartney calls them in "Anthology") as well afterwards, with the result that I was the first one to puke in the bus on the way to the place we were gonna spend the night - in a plastic bag, of course. I know the art of puking, you know!
The place to spend the night turned out to be some upper class district of Barcelona, in a villa where a friend of Egil's puta lives. I mean, there were seven bedrooms, marble floors, a forty inch TV set and stuff like that - plus a swimming pool and all. So at least it wasn't as old and dirty as the rest of Spain, but there's wasn't a lot of hot water here either. Not that I had a lot of use for water - I'd forgotten my shower soap somewhere on the road, my shampoo and conditioner at Jimmie's place and now forgot my bar of soap as well (I have a couple of hotel soaps in reserve now, in addition to the shampoo we have bought because everybody has managed to lose their shampoos on the way, so I'm clean again now).
Then there was sightseeing and eating in Barcelona. We looked at a half finished church and a park, and everybody were so bloody impressed - except me, who wasn't in the mood to be particularly impressed by anything at all.
Finally we could go on to Lleida (which is pronounced as "lei deg" - "tired of you" in Norwegian. "Spain, I'm tired of you!"), but in addition to Egil's puta, the other bitch now came along too (and was with us until two nights ago).
Lleida was okay, though. Funny promotors (who spoke English. The "boss" even knew a bit in Norwegian: "Runke på stranda" - "wank at the beach"), but the gig itself wasn't particularly fun, since there were quite few people and they were quite reserved. But at least there were proper facilities and even a backstage room.
After the gig Egil and the puta and Mads and the bitch (yeah, he's fucked 'er...) wanted to stay and party, while I, Ulf, Nils and Mikke wanted to go to bed. We messed around in the streets for about an hour trying to find the hotel, until we finally got there by the help of a couple of local heroes who knew "a little bit" of English.
I didn't have much of an appetite the last few days in the shit country, so while the others ate breakfast (I never got anything eatable anyway), I went for a walk to the local Sunday market up the street. That was quite more interesting. Nothing to buy, but fun. Old magazines with Franco on the cover, portraits of same etc.
I guess I wasn't as grumpy this day as the last ones (it was after all the last gig in the shitty country), and besides, the place was cool. But more about that later. Now we'll have to go and eat. They even ask if people are vegetarians back here in Civilization!
Nah, fuck, one had better continue before it's too late!
We are now (in the story) on Sunday, in Castellon, at the club Ricoamor. That was a quite cool place, as I mentioned, with a cool little stage. I think it's the smallest stage I've ever stood on. The club wasn't particularly big in itself, so we didn't need any PA, and of course there were none either. But one of the speakers of the song rig was pointed directly towards the stage, so there was no problem in hearing oneself.
After the sound check we even had the chance to relax for an hour or two at the hotel before we were gonna play...
This was the last job in Spain - probably the last time I played in Spain ever - plus that it was a quite cool place (we even got a T-shirt each), quite a lot of people and my voice had healed a bit after the "holiday", so I tried to put in a bit extra. Besides, it is quite fun to sing "fed up with you, girl" while I'm staring at Egil's puta. She never saw that, of course, she was too busy watching Egil...
And, yes, it was the last time in my life that I sang "Me Vuelvo Loco"! Yeah!
After the gig we hung around for a while, as usual, while Mikke sold records and stuff. There was a nerd girl with huge glasses there who came over to Nils, gave him a piece of cheese and said that some times she thought it was a pity that she had a boyfriend... She came over to me as well, and told me to give her regards to Knut (Schreiner, of among others the Kwyet Kings).
Then the others went and ate Chinese food while I went and phoned home, and then I went back and ate air, and then Egil went and followed his puta to the station, and then we were rid of her, and then we went to sleep the last night in shit country.
The day afterwards we went down to Ricoamor to fetch the stash, and then we drove all day, among other places over these bloody mountains, on roads that probably were no less steep and turny than Norwegian mountain roads. Up at the top we stopped for a few minutes throwing a couple of snow balls, and I wrote "The Basement Brats at the top" (from there on, things could only go downwards) on the toilet wall. And then we drove down again to the other side.
The plan was really that we would check in to a hotel in Spain for the night, since the hotels are cheaper there than in France, and then drive on into France the day after. But suddenly we were across the border. The border was just a little box in the middle of the road in some village, and suddenly the signs were in French. There weren't even any people in that box.
So then we discussed whether to check into a hotel or call the Shoo Chain Brothers people in Toulouse and ask them if we could stay with them again. We were in Toulouse, but didn't find a phone booth that accepted coins, so we didn't get to call anywhere.
We never checked into a hotel, of course, we slept outside one instead - in the car. Myself, I slept in a sleeping bag in the back. It wasn't exactly hot, and it wasn't exactly soft either, but at least I got to stretch out somewhat.
If nothing else, we had time enough when we got to Limoges. We found the club and were allowed to do the get-in and the sound check an hour earlier than we were really supposed to. In the meantime we switched between sitting in the car relaxing and going to have a coffee and stuff.
The guy at the club was very nice. We did the sound check, and then he showed us the hotel. I went out and called home, and then I went to get cleaned up and start this letter.
The dinner before the gig was great. The only really good food I've had on the whole tour. An appetizer consisting of - for me - some salad and tomatoes (yeah yeah, tomatoes isn't the greatest thing in the world) and stuff, and then a main course with a great omelette, delicate rice etc. And even dessert. The appetizer was ready on the table when we got to the restaurant, and the guy from the club was himself out in the kitchen fixing the food. The wine was good as well, of course. It was almost paradise. Something else than Spain, definitely!
Unfortunately, there weren't a lot of people at the gig, but it was okay still. Besides, we were gonna get paid 2,000 francs anyway. Two Norwegian girls turned up, and that was a bit fun. Not that we're going to France to play for Norwegians (well, this was really Nils' opinion. I was still in the band, I still felt I had to bend to the others' opinions. In reality, I couldn't care less if we "weren't in France to play for Norwegians". I just thought it was fun), but it was a bit fun anyway. The funniest thing was actually that they came straight over to us and asked "Are you the ones from Norway?" Of course we didn't understand a thing when someone suddenly spoke Norwegian to us.
Then to Angouleme (the club's name was Yucatan) which had been arranged instead of Bordeaux. We didn't find the club by ourselves, but the deal was really that we should call from the railway station home to this guy from the Bogeymen, Laurent, and his lady, Cookie, and then they were gonna pick us up there. Which we did, too, after having something to eat at MacDonald's.
Nice people again, and they spoke good English (especially Laurent, even if he didn't talk a lot. Cookie's English was not really that good, but she knew enough). After the sound check, we went home to them to drink a bit of coffee and eat some cookies, and then there was food at the club. Nothing like Limoges, but there was at least some bread I could eat.
But there were no people at the gig. At the most I think I counted twelve people in the audience, and that included Mikke and Laurent. But those who were there seemed to like it, and we got 410 francs to cover fuel and stuff, and of course there was free food and spending the night at Laurent and Cookie's.
Well well... We got early to Arras today. The time is now approximately four o'clock, and I'm sitting here in the bus outside the boat. I thought I should try to tidy up a bit here. The car could use a wash as well, but the biggest problem right now is the scratch that has turned up on the windscreen...
Well, one is home again, then... I'm now sitting at work trying to finish the story.
At Laurent and Cookie's place Nils and I had been sleeping in Cookie's work room where there was a bed and they put an extra mattress on the floor. The rest of the guys lay down in the living room. Nils and I fell asleep quite quickly, while the others sat downstairs looking at the drawings and paintings of the hosts. I would have liked to have a look at that myself, but firstly, I didn't know they were doing it, and secondly, I was really quite tired...
After a nice breakfast (I even got a glass of milk) the morning after, we were explained the road to Rennes - and even got a hand drawn map with the way to Tontons Flingeurs.
Than we went with Laurent and Cookie down to the club to pick up the stash. We thought we should get going quite early since it was a few hours to drive (and a complicated route) and get-in was quite early. But the guy who was supposed to let us in was half an hour to three quarters of an hour late, and therefore we were too.
But we got on our way in the end, and even found the way to Rennes quite easily. Finding the way to the club, on the other hand, was worse, and we had to stop somewhere and call again. It turned out that we had stopped right outside the police headquarters ("Hotel de Police" said the sign), and the promotor who came to pick us up didn't think that was a good place to stay... :-)
Sound check and stuff went quite well, and then we got a bit to eat (I had half a metre of bread and some fruit myself) and got a map with the way to the hotel. That was quite easy to find: to the left at the third roundabout, then to the right at the second and then it was just around the corner (or something like that).
It was a Formula 1 hotel. I don't know if you've ever seen any of those, but it was obviously particularly for truck drivers and others who need a simple and cheap place to stay. It is quite simple - no service of any kind or anything like that, and you use codes to get in, and it really looks more like some sort of space ship. But it's nice and comfy (even though I had to share a double bed with Nils) and stuff, so it's quite alright to be staying there for a night or two. Actually, everything is quite okay with it, it just hasn't got much soul...
Mikke decided to stay at the hotel and sleep while we played. He thought he had heard enough Basement Brats concerts for a while, and besides he was tired, so we didn't think it was gonna be a problem that he stayed behind. But it would turn out at this was probably the night we would have had the most need of him on the whole tour.
When we got on, everything went bad. Mads managed to break two drum chairs, in addition to breaking his knuckles even a bit more than he already had. Nils broke a string in the first song already and had to struggle with Mads' guitar (which gets more out of tune with every song - at least when Nils is playing on it) for the rest of the gig - until he broke the E string (the lightest one) a bit later in the concert. He kept playing anyway, since he only needs that string when he's doing solos. But when he broke the A string in the first encore, he had to give up, and the rest of us had to go on alone. And Ulf had problems with his bass amp (or rather with the adapter he had to use for the French outlets) so his electricity disappeared, and I got an electrical shock from the mike after the audience had sprayed me with a water bottle (Mads got a shock from the bass amp the night before - since there was no earth in that adapter). So we had a few breaks, you might say. But the audience was good and didn't seem to mind a lot.
The party backstage afterwards was also good - especially the Les Tontons Flingeurs drinks: some booze thing they light up with a lighter pistol and which you are then supposed to drink bottom up with a straw... That was stuff that made you fly, I'll tell you! The guy from the supporting band who we partied with was a funny fellow too. And then we sold quite well (sold out the T-shirts, for instance) and we chatted with a nice guy from Dig Records and we got the bloody wine bottle that broke in Belgium a few days later.
Then there was the day after in Paris. We actually managed to hit the bullseye on the first try, so we didn't have to drive the eighty kilometres long ring road an extra time... :-) It wasn't really Paris, it was a kind of suburb named Issy-Les-Molineaux (I think that's how it's spelled).
We knew we were gonna be some kind of support act this night - together with the Toulouse band Greedy Guts (whose latest record Mads and I had heard at the place we slept in Toulouse) - for a band called Sheriff something who obviously are quite big in France. What we didn't know was that we weren't getting paid for the job. No one had told us that before we got there.
But, alright, we played for some people who probably wouldn't have come to see us if it had been just a Basement Brats concert (that is people who didn't know about us before) (that was somebody else's opinion again. Myself, I would rather have had a day off), we got free sleeping facilities and food (even if that wasn't the greatest thing on Earth) and the boyfriend of Cecilia, who had arranged the France jobs for us and who was really supposed to come with us but couldn't do it anyway, got us a case of beer which we brought with us. He was very nice, by the way. He told us that this was the only way we could have played in Paris at this time, but that they would like us to headline the next time.
Greedy Guts, by the way, are better on record that live. The drummer was a bit out of it... The sheriffs were good, but not very exciting. They were like a second class version of Bad Religion - in French.
Our own playing went well. For the first time in a long time my voice actually did exactly what I told it to and the others played well too. And the audience was more and more with us with each song. There were quite a few of them as well, even if some obviously couldn't be bothered to come down before the main band started (the hall was in the cellar while the bar and record sales (only boring hardcore that I've never heard about) was upstairs).
The backstage was bloody warm and moist, and we were not really in the shape of being much of an audience for the others, so we got Cecilia's boyfriend to show us the way to the hotel (the real promotor wasn't able to until about one o'clock at night). Then Nils, Mads and I had a tiny little nachspiel, and then we slept and then we got up and ate French breakfast and then we waited for the others to get up, and then we went to Arras.
That wasn't a long trip, so there was no hurry. We arrived two hours before get-in - even if we got a bit lost and had to ask for the way to the boat. But the people were there, so we were able to have an early sound check and go to relax at the hotel before dinner.
Here ends my account of the trip written at the time. My and Ulf's girlfriends joined us in Arras, so that's why I didn't write any more about the trip to her; she was there! Here, however, is a short summary of the rest of the trip:
The Arras gig was, as indicated, on a boat (the second place we played in France that was called Tontons Flingeurs - after an old French film). Nice place too!
Being shown to the hotel after the sound check, we were joined by the girls, and Sissel - my girlfriend - rented another room for the two of us - with a bath tub and all. Luxury!
At the dinner before the gig we met Richie of Screaming Apple Records, who had brought the LP edition of "The Bratbeat". I overheard he and Mads complaining about my PC PageMaker files again... Hours and hours of hard work. :-(
The concert was very nice. The support band (a German band from Cologne featuring among others Richie's brother) was good and we all joined in for a couple of silly encores like "Louie Louie" and such. Nils naturally thought that was a waste of time. I guess he would rather have played "Me Vuelvo Loco" or some shit like that instead...
On to the Pit's in Kortrijk, Belgium, the next day - the only place on the tour (apart from the gigs in Norway) where we'd actually been before (in '94 with the Kwyet Kings and the Yum Yums). We were treated to the hospitality of some vaguely strange guy whose name I never remember (but who must surely be the biggest Ramones fan in Belgium).
I can't remember the name of the support band, but it featured Wim Cottenier who did the "Belgian interview" with me (to be found elsewhere on these pages).
Our own gig was very pleasant, although the equipment was sparse; a song rig with only one mike (at least we had two the last time we played there). The place was fairly crowded (although you can't fit too many people in there) and like our last show there, it was videotaped (yet another thing I was promised a copy of but never got). Our host went into ecstasy when we did "Rockaway Beach" and I was carried around the place by the audience at the end of the gig. A very nice way to end a career, actually.
Of course, it wasn't quite over yet. We didn't spend the night there, we wanted to get home as soon as possible. We first drove to Bruxelles to let Egil off at the airport, as he so desperately wanted to go back to Hell (we took our last ever group photos there as well), and then we drove all night. Sissel and I bothered the others by playing Frank Zappa in the car while she was driving (probably part of the reason they kicked me out, heh heh... Well, I was fucking sick and tired of some of the stuff they'd been playing all the time). We got to Kiel and did some shopping (the town seemed like just a big shopping complex for Scandinavians).
On the ferry to Gothenburg we finally got the opportunity to relax a bit again (and do some tax free shopping), and then there were just a few hours of driving left until we were finally at home sweet home again. I can't begin to describe my happiness when we finally crossed the border between Sweden and Norway at Svinesund!
The last ever Basement Brats gig - and officially the last gig on the tour - took place (without Egil) at a small Easter Rock festival sort of thing at the St. Croix house in Fredrikstad a couple of days later. The audience was sparse, but that didn't really matter that much to me. I had a good time, and I was just happy to be back. Happy enough, obviously, to be persuaded to do "Me Vuelvo Loco" one final time after all (since then I've been desperately - and rather successfully, actually - trying to forget both the melody and lyrics of the moronic tune).
That was it, then. We decided to have a couple of weeks off after that, during which I mainly went around contemplating whether to quit or not. Finally we met for a meeting at Ulf's place, at which time I had decided to present my unhappiness with the situation, but still offer to try for a little while more. I mean, you don't walk away from five and a half years of work just like that (the fact that I'm sitting here writing this right now indicates that I still really haven't). Instead Egil and Mads then presented their unhappiness with my depression during the second week in Spain and said that if I didn't quit the band, they would. How I went about apologizing in case anybody had been hurt by my bad mood, tried to explain the circumstances and offered to work towards a more constructive solution to the problem is all explained in the FAQ. The only one who was more or less on my side was Ulf, while Nils was sort of on a "Duh..."-like sideline.
And that was it, basically... Here are my thoughts at the time (directly continued from above):
There are still a few things I would like to write before I finish this letter.
I've been told that the others got mad at me and all that. I can accept that to some degree, 'cause I guess I wasn't very uplifting company in Spain from the time of the Leon shit and out. But I've already explained a bit about how I feel about the Brats these days, and those feelings were only strengthened by what happened. The others rarely or never care about what I think, and then they get pissed because I feel things differently than them, and then I feel even more out of place...
I never did get to finish the story above, and I haven't been able to pull myself together to write any more since.
Now of course we know the sad end of the story, and I guess there's no big point in expanding very much on that story.
I only want to finish what I was about to say above - that I don't think I treated Egil much worse than the others. I was angry at everything, really, but I kept mostly to myself and kept my mouth shut. But - I was (and still am, for that matter) fucking pissed at Rocio and that fucking unprofessional way she acted. Suddenly she wanted to tell us everything from the "fact" that our poster was "ugly" to how we ought to do the sound check. I felt like Paul McCartney must have felt with Yoko Ono hanging around John Lennon all the time. And when everything is said and done, this was in my opinion the direct cause of this split coming now - not first and foremost me. It's all good and well that I was grumpy, but no one cared to ask why. And I guess that's been quite symptomatic for my whole situation in the band lately. No one has really cared much about what I thought. I should preferably just keep my mouth shut and do my job, and what I have felt I have had to contribute and have thought, hasn't had any value if it didn't happen to be the same as the others already thought.
But this doesn't really matter much any more. After five and a half years where the band has been more or less the only thing which has been stable all the time and often the only thing I have had to look forward to - it is now over. Now I have to think of something else...
And to think that it was actually I who thought of the name "The Basement Brats" once...
Ole, ex-Brat
home for good...
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